Rogue PvP guide
Introduction In PvP, most classes will likely attempt to kite a Rogue rather than engage one in melee combat. Warriors, other Rogues, paladins, and occasionally (brave) shamans are the exceptions. To avoid excessive kiting, make smart use of your cooldowns (Sprint, Blind, Vanish, Preparation) and Crippling Poison. Playstyle varies immensly depending on your build, specifically with the introduction of the 41 point talents, such as Mutilate. Strategy The most important skill to learn is re-stealthing. Having mastered it and given proper judgment you should never die. To restealth a Rogue is able to: * Blind, run out of combat. * Gouge, Sprint, run out of combat. * Vanish. * Apply Crippling Poison on the target and simply run away from combat. * Kidney shot, run away from combat. From stealth Rogue has many more options available to him: * Sap, bandage. * Sap, wait for debuffs or a priest/warlock shield to run out, then Cheap Shot. * Sap, Cheap Shot, run away and restealth for extra points on the target. Classes Rogue Whoever gets the first hit, wins. Exceptions include engaging a tier 3 rogue in greens, failing to have cooldowns up, or having your opponent resist/dodge/parry pivotal attacks. The key is to prevent the other rogue from re-stealthing. Open up with a Cheap Shot, and instead of using the five combo points for Kidney Shot or Eviscerate, use Rupture instead (now the other rogue can't re-stealth or Vanish for 16 seconds). Vanish, open up again with Cheap Shot and stunlock the rogue until he's dead. Keep an eye on your health, and Blind/heal as necessary. Warrior If you're fighting a good warrior you do not want to get hit at all. Well geared warriors will be able one or two hit you with a critical mortal strike. If he's well geared, it is also likely for him to resist or dodge many of your abilities; be ready to blow some cooldowns. Here's a basic attack plan: * Cheap Shot, sinister strike (or Hemorrhage) then gouge, turn on sprint and rupture as you run through him. If you're unable to get it off fast enough to restealth then make good use of Vanish. * Reopen and kill him. Evasion is your friend, overpower does not hurt you as much as his mortal strikes, you'll probably dodge sometime anyway, might as well dodge everything else too. Priest If you catch a priest without his shields up, the fight is already yours. Stunlock him and kill him. If he does have his shields up, hit him a lot to take them down. Before he puts his shield back up, blind him and wait for the Shadow Word: Pain to fade. Vanish again and open up with Cheap Shot, stunlocking him until you've killed him. Trinket his fear if necessary. Mage Stunlocking is what you want to do versus a Mage. Open with Cheap Shot (see Discussion for discretion against using other abilities, such as Ambush), and after he Blinks run the other way to re-stealth or simply Vanish and reopen (the latter being preferable due to the fact that it takes less time). If you don't accidentally run into his Frost Nova any semi-decently geared Rogue should be able to kill a Mage within the cooldown of his blink. If he's about to come out of this stun and still not dead, blind. Druid Just stay in his face and try to hurt him without using many cooldowns, saving those for when you're dying. If he's a bear, wait for him to be half health and turn on evasion to dodge his stun. Once his bash expires Blind him in caster form, restealth, if you got fairy fire on you use up your gouge and then kidney shot and eviscerate, he should die. If it's a moonkin you're fighting then you better hope you break his roots in time to get to him and kill him, in this case you want to use up your vanish on that first roots since they'll last the longest, use up blind on second roots to max out his diminishing returns, it's the best thing you can do in this fight. Hunter It's a good idea to Sap the Hunter then kill his pet. Remember that the maximum duration of any crowd control, including sap, has been nerfed to 18 seconds, so time is of the essence. Keep traps in mind at all times. You'll probably run into Freezing Trap, so the Hunter can get some distance on you. Blind him if you get trapped; Blind outlasts the effect of the Freezing Trap. Crippling poison is a good idea, because it slows down the speed of the Hunter. If a Hunter gets the opportunity to gain distance on you, you're dead. Apply crippling poison to your main-hand weapon to ensure a higher poison chance. If you start off against the Hunter, Sap him, kill his pet, then re-open against the Hunter with a stunlock. That will pretty much guarantee his death. Premeditation is a good idea to use against the Hunter (or pet) as it can greatly speed things up. It's better to use it against the Hunter since 45 seconds of Sap time (at Rank 3) is a lot of time to kill his pet. If the Hunter opens up on you at close range (dumb Hunter), use Cloak of Shadows to remove his Wing Clip (providing he used it), Vanish, and proceed to Sap the Hunter, kill his pet, then kill the Hunter. If at any time the Hunter isn't dead and you're in trouble, use Cloak of Shadows (if needed) and Vanish to get away from him (either to open up again or to run away). Warlock The trick to Warlocks is to kill them as quick as possible. If you linger in killing a Warlock his DoTs will eventually bring you down. DoTs also prevent re-stealhing, so completely stunlocking a Warlock is even better. Fear is generally predictable because the Warlock will use it: * If he is low on health * After he DoTs you * If you approach him dealing a lot of damage. Warlocks are soft (cloth-only) and won't tolerate a Rogue quickly bringing them down. Since Fear has a 1.5 second cast time, it gives you plenty of time to use Cloak of Shadows and become immune to his fear effect after he casts it on you. If you're an Undead Rogue, your racial Will of the Forsaken gives you a HUGE advantage over Warlocks since it can be used whilst feared. If you possess a PvP trinket capable of dispelling fear once it is cast then all the better. The best strategy is to Sap the warlock, kill his minion, re-stealth, then stunlock the warlock. If you don't see the pet, it's best to avoid the warlock. If he deathcoils you, you're likely dead. Paladin This is one of the most difficult classes for rogues to beat. Paladins are basically tanks that can heal themselves, so it makes it that much harder. There are several things to remember whilst fighting paladins. * Never let them Divine Shield/heal themselves. That effectively restarts the fight for you minus some of your health/cooldowns. If they cast Divine Shield, blind them once the shield fades, bandage, Vanish, and re-start the fight. Or simply run away whilst they heal themselves, re-stealth, and try again. * If a paladin knows you're coming, they will spam Consecration so they can break your stealth. * Keeping a paladin stunlocked is essential, therefore * Cheap Shot is a valid opener against a paladin unless your ambush gives a guaranteed kill. However many paladins will simply bubble out of it and kill you. Once they know you're there, consecrate will easily prevent you from getting another opener. Retribution trees have their own versions of stunlock with hammer and repent and will slam you with a lot of damage in that time with Seal of Command, Consecration, and Crusader Strike. Never open on a protection tree unless you're very sure of what you're doing; holy shield, Redoubt, and Reckoning easily tear rogues apart. Probably your easiest fight will be with a Holy tree since Rogues fare better against casters. Good paladins will shield themselves out of stunlocks at all the right times, spam Consecration to stop Vanish, and keep you slow and unhappy with Judgement of Justice. Hammer of Wrath can be used at any range and the 1 sec casting time makes it very hard to counter. Shaman The first thing that is to know when ecountering a shaman is that the Rogue must attack first. If the shaman breaks the Rogue's stealth might be impossible to survive a fight long enough to stun/poison with a dps shaman. Elemental Mastery/Stormstrike can do insane damage to leather/cloth when used correctly. Best way is to do your best to not lose your invisibility. After one stun, the shaman should be easy. Be close to the shaman becouse shamans can kite melee classes very good with Earthbind Totem and Frost Shock. Evasion helps a lot versus a Enhancement shaman to dodge the shaman's Windfury criticals. Elemental shamans have a great advantage over Rogues due to Elemental Mastery which deals 1000+ damage minimum. Good geared shaman can do even twice the damage which often results in the Rogue's defeat. Category:Guides Category:PvP